Flores and Ferraro as a Hit Squad

You could admire the skill of the assassins and still be appalled by the result, after the Los Angeles City Council killed public financing of political campaigns the other day.

This was an inside job, accomplished by two skilled insiders, Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores and her accomplice, Council President John Ferraro. Seldom has a City Hall political hit been administered with such speed and surprise--and by such a deceptively nice trigger person as Councilwoman Flores. And few accomplices can spin an alibi as well as Ferraro.

The victims were outsiders, the citizen members of a commission appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to recommend new ethical standards for local government. In its final report, the commission urged publicly financed election campaigns in order to curb the influence of big campaign contributors and proposed tougher conflict-of-interest rules.

The commission ended its work with high hopes. “A historic moment in the life of the city,” said Rabbi Allen A. Freehling, a member of the group, on the day the commission announced its proposals. But to the council, if this was history, it was a bad chapter. A number of council members resented a commission they felt was composed of do-gooders from the outside, trying to shackle the lawmakers with an unrealistic set of rules.

The moment of truth came on Friday as the council was debating the commission’s proposals, now in the form of a recommended city ordinance. Few suspected Flores was the agent of the insiders’ revenge when she began to speak. But she had a plan. Before she finished, Flores had proposed, and pushed through, an amendment that eliminated the provision for taxpayer-financed campaigns.

The ethics ordinance plan would still create a new government agency to enforce conflict-of-interest and campaign finance laws. But with public financing removed and other provisions weakened, the proposal is not much like the plan proposed by the citizens commission.

The measure, as revised by the council, will be placed on the June ballot if the council votes final approval as expected next month. Accompanying it will be a proposal to raise the pay of council members, the mayor, the city attorney and the city controller.

It was well into the third day of an unfocused debate on the ethics package when Flores spoke. The night before, she had her staff prepare an amendment that would wipe out publicly financed campaigns. But she didn’t know whether she would introduce it. “I had it in the back of my mind as a play that might work,” she said.

Flores was also aware of the animosity several council members felt toward Geoffrey Cowan, who heads the citizens commission, and attorney Bob Stern, who was testifying on behalf of its report.

Ferraro’s hostility was especially visible.

The week before, the council president had appeared at a press conference with Cowan and had promised to vote to put the campaign finance plan on the ballot. But on this morning, Ferraro had lectured Cowan and Stern, calling their reforms impractical and potentially harmful. “As I listened to Ferraro, he seemed to be losing his zeal,” Flores said.

That was crucial to the vote count. As the morning began, it looked like Flores might be one vote short of the eight needed for approval of her amendment on the 15-member council. She needed Ferraro.

Not a word was exchanged between the two. But when it came time to vote, Ferraro backed Flores and she won.

Afterwards, reporters demanded to know why Ferraro switched. At times like this, Ferraro, an All-American lineman for USC, assumes the pose of the stereotypical dumb jock. His expression totally innocent--but with telltale signs of humor around his eyes--Ferraro gave his alibi. He had made a mistake. He thought the main vote on campaign finance would come up later.

That’s hard to believe. Ferraro is the council’s ultimate insider. Very little surprises him. He doesn’t make mistakes on matters as important as this. That’s why he’s president.

It was a slick move and the beauty of it was that nothing had to be said. Flores and Ferraro were teammates who have played the game together for years. She knew, without being told, that Ferraro was ready to abandon the reformers. It’s proof that the best deals in politics are not put in writing, or even discussed.

Why, then, was it appalling?

Because the council needs reform. All through the debate, most council members admitted this. But the majority didn’t seem to understand that the world outside City Hall knows it too.

Studied alone, as if it were a museum piece, Flores’ maneuver was a success. But viewed in the context of a city government overly influenced by campaign contributors, it merely showed that the insiders’ vision doesn’t extend beyond the City Hall steps.